“Windfall” by Tempe O’Kun

Buy, Borrow, or Skip?

Spoiler-free Synopsis:

This is a fun, midsize novel about two young adults (Max and Kylie) who have recently wrapped the TV show they met on.
After a few months apart, they arrange a 3-week visit, during which Kylie comes forward about her family’s history of apparent mental illness, and a concerned Max agrees to help her figure out if there’s anything to her ancestors’ records of there being something in the woods.

Content Warnings:

This is a book written and published in the Furry Community, intended for members of that community.

This book is intended for adults and contains several fairly long scenes of fun, well-modeled sex. If I had teens I wouldn’t have any issue letting them read this book- but maybe look over it yourself to decide first, and make sure your teens know about condoms, because there isn’t a single one in this book.

If you’re sensitive to body horror, there’s a little bit of that near the end of the book that I found to be somewhat disturbing.

If you’re sensitive to existential themes, as I am, those are touched on throughout, but I found them manageable.

There is minor violence, mostly towards the end.

Impressions, Comments, and Personal Beefs:

Hey this is a pretty good book! I bought it at Further Confusion 2018, and I’m glad I finally got around to it. It’s 326 pages of a nice healthy mixture of angst and spook and fluff.
All the relationships feel very relaxed- there’s an undercurrent of trust amongst many of the characters that’s pretty much my number one favorite thing in any media.

I liked this book enough that I’ll probably be buying its sort-of sequel, which has just been announced and is currently available for pre-sale! Which I like to think is fairly high praise- this is a standalone novel and the second book is 10 short stories. It’s just a place I like to spend time in and wouldn’t mind going back to.

Time for beefs.
Y’ALL, like all furries, I have some STRONG OPINIONS about aesthetics and world organization- I don’t want to derail the review too much, but this story hits a few of my sore points.
One of those points is when the world of the story is one which is BOTH functionally our real world and ALSO has distinct species seperations- ex: dogs cannot breed with cats, pheromones work like they do on animals instead of like they do on humans, and weird intra-species dynamics like packs and stuff. I just don’t think you can have both without drawing us out of the story.
The other big one that this book runs afoul of me for is giving male characters animal-style penises (complete with sheathe and penis-bone)- this is its own sin that I’ll get into more in depth elsewhere, but when coupled with “boys have animal penises and girls have human vaginas” I get fairly upset about it- at least give us matching sets, come on y’all.

Anyway all that aside- I know well enough to expect it from this community, so as steamed as it makes me I can leave it be and otherwise enjoy the story- I do strongly reccomend this book. It’s a little creepy, but not so much that I couldn’t read it before bed, and honestly the sex parts are so sweet!

These two kids realise they’re in love and have these like great, sweet sessions where they check in and make sure there’s still consent, and everyone is an active participant. It’s just nice, you know? I do wish the book had included condoms- I’m fairly sure both these people are virgins and he literally can’t get her pregnant but it’d have been a nice touch and I’m absolutely certain that O’Kun could have easily slipped them in there alongside the fairly realistic moments of humor and clumsiness that come with everyone being new to sex.

Anyway! I feel like I’m playing those parts up a little too much- It’s not all sex, I promise! The plot is well-strung and I absolutely loved this and would read it again.